SE Exam Review Courses - Fall 2012

[Chosen One]

After passing the Vertical portion of the exam my 2nd attempt, and getting ready to start my studies for the Lateral, I'd like to get everyone's opinions on review courses they took in preperation for the SE exam. Basically, I have researched and found the main ones to be sponsored by:

Kaplan - offers both a Vertical and Lateral review seperately. Live review on a Saturday and Sunday about 2 months before the exam and then unlimited playback. Pricing is reasonable at about $550 per module.

ASCE - offers one review course put on by primarily University of Louisville professors but is geared towards Vertical test in my opinion. Course was offered twice a week during the work day through a live session so if you are employed, your company must agree to it. I took this course in the spring and it is pretty good, but not worth the $2000 in my opinion since it is expensive and there is no playback. I do think it was beneficial just not sure for that price.

School of PE - offers both Lateral and Vertical review seperately. This seems to be the best review but the time commitment is daunting. Either 4 nights a week for 3 hours of 4 weekend sessions for 5 weeks. I travel with my job sometimes so I don't think I could this would be a viable option.

Irvine Institute had a course last spring a friend looked into, but I don't see an SE review listed on thier site anymore. Also, Testmasters has review courses although I'm not sure about an SE review.

I've read a lot of discussions from past tests about Kaplan, and the comments are mixed but I think I'm going to sign up for it. I'd like to get some comments from anyone having thoughts on review courses.

 

[Rhoadies]

I personally did not take a review course, but I had two close structural friends who each took the school of PE review course. Both of them were sitting for both the lateral and vertical portions of the exam so they had class 6 nights a week. When I asked them about the course, both had more negative comments than positive.

One had an issue with the quality of the presentations. He said "If I'm paying this much money the presentations should look better than what I could do in 15 minutes in Power Point." The other just made note of how some of the sessions were not updated for the newer codes.

I did not take a review course. I even thought that I was hurting myself because I couldn't afford the review course price. After I heard from my colleagues, I did not feel nearly as unprepared as they did.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[dakota_79]

I'll be honest...I don't think any review courses are worthy of your money. 2 reasons:

1) The most important type of review is working through sample problems, which does not encompass the review courses.

2) The time needed outside of working samples, needed to "relearn" stuff, can just as easily be done from the plethora of review books out there (SERM, SEAOC, etc) for far less money, on your own schedule, and probably in a lot less time (you can just focus on the stuff you know you're weak in). Remembering that the stuff we all need to relearn is nothing we haven't seen before, so it's not as important to have a supposed subject matter expert teaching it the second time around.

Your mileage may vary, though.

 

[snowboarder99]

I took the School of PE course and was not impressed. There seemed to be a lot of overlap between some of the professors on items such as applying load cases out of ASCE-7. Then they would gloss over what seemed to be more pertinent. When I took the the lateral portion, there were a couple of people who said the Kaplan course was great. They said it covered what they thought would be most likely on the exam and didn't waste time with things like the first couple of chapters of ASCE-7. I didn't pass and I am definitely planning on taking that course this go round.

 

[daedalus34r]

I took the SEAOI [iL] refersher course. It was quite long, met for 5months, 2x a week. It was expensive and in the end i found it useless. i went because my work would cover it so i figured I would try it out.

Honestly, people can easily study by themselves and be far more efficient. Everything i learned i did on my own and when i started i was only mildly proficient in steel/concrete. The quality of my work experience is very poor compared to the kinds of eng projects other folks get to work on. If i could teach myself everything else, i dont see how it cant be done by anyone else.

 

[McEngr]

I agree with Dakota. I took the Kaplan courses and felt that other than Sue Frey and Tim Mays, the course is a waste of time. Tim Mays is by far the best instructor and gave me confidence on bridge design. I still don't know my score, but I gained more than 4 morning bridge problems as a result.

 

[pittguy12]

I took the Kaplan course last August in preparation for taking the 16 hour exam in October. I took both days of the test and passed Vertical on the first try. Passed Lateral this past spring. I fully believe the reason I passed it was because of taking this course. In hindsight, I didn't put in the hours I needed to for the Saturday version the first time around but it was a lot to handle!

I could not have been happier with it and several others I took it with said the same thing. My version was 28 hours (I think this is still the same) and consumed 2 weekends of my life but probably did more to prepare me than anything else. Some of the courses weren't as good as others but thankfully the good ones covered most of my weak areas. Tim Mays did several of the courses and he is probably one of the best instructors I have ever learned from. Several other of the modules were so good that I just used their notes during the test!

In addition, I got the Structural course book set (Seismic, Concrete, and Practice Test) with taking the class. The seismic book they offer probably did more to help me through the lateral portion than even ASCE 7 did! Seriously, it did a great job of explaining things and giving relevant and complete examples. Between that and the notes I had from the course, I found almost everything I needed during the test!

It was also helpful to be able to go back and watch the videos when I wanted too. Particulary when I had to retake the saturday version...it was great to have.

Could not have been happier and would have paid much more for the quality of instruction.

PS (i also took ASCE PE's version and although I love ASCE I found their course to be useless. too much fluff and not enough good material)

 

[pittguy12]

I would also add in response to Dakota and McEngr that, at least in my case, I had to learn a lot of material for this test outside of my normal practice. In my particular case, I really benefited from having the instruction. Yes, some weren't great but I felt that by in large most of them did a good job of getting you on the right level of the test. There was a lot of time that had to go into studying beyond it but it can be tough to try and learn something cold without hearing it explained.

To each his(her) own!....

 

[Chosen One]

Thanks for the responses guys, I remember in old threads McEngr specifically saying some of the Kaplan instructors lacked what one would expect. I'm in the same boat as pittguy12 in that I have very little experince in certain areas (specifically Seismic, Masonry, Timber, Bridges) and having someone else "teach" on the subject matters is beneficial to me. I like the fact I can go back and watch the sessions as many times as I want and it breaks up the endless grind of doing problems. I signed up today so hopefully this course along with the SEAOC manuals can get me over the hump for the Lateral exam.

 

[dakota_79]

Definitely to each his or her own. Congrats on passing, pittguy!! Chosen, I'd only add that I, too, was weak in exactly those same areas since I rarely if ever use them, and "taught" (or rather re-taught) them to myself - I found SERM to be adequate for getting back up to speed on the basics in those areas except for seismic, which the SEAOC IBC volumes were incredibly useful for. Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[SE Taker]

I was not impressed by the Kaplin Class; I would not recommend

 

[Bombo_Buster]

I am selling my copies of 2006 IBC Seismic Design manuals (3 volumes) - $90 and the latest edition of the Structural Engineer Reference manual - $90. All of them were purchased in January 2012 and are in excellent condition. Send me a message to my Inbox, if you are interested.

 

[ran]

I also do not recommend the Kaplan course. Mays and Kanitkar did a good job. However, the vast majority of the presenters were not worth the time or money. The vertical concrete, vertical wood, vertical steel and lateral wood come to mind as being especially poorly done. The presenter for concrete gave a presentation that you would expect to see at a junior high school trying to get kids engaged in structuraly engineering. The lateral wood ignored seismic and wind provisions from NDS and IBC. Vertical wood and steel presentations did not seem to be prepared. On whole, I would have been better off spending the time studying on my own. So the class had a double negative impact in that I lost time and money.

 

[McEngr]

ran,

You are right. I overspent with the expectation that lateral engineering for each material would have lots of example problems. Include basic knowledge, up the requirements to an intermediate and significant knowledge level for each material. It was not that way. Nonetheless, it wasn't a total loss because of the general seismic review and the bridge review by Tim Mays. Mr. Mays could have his own instructional course and exceed the other courses, in my opinion.

FWIW, if I didn't go chapter by chapter in the PCA Notes on my own study time in addition to all of the SEAOC Seismic Design Manuals, I would not have passed.

 

[ipswitch]

ran,

You are right. I overspent with the expectation that lateral engineering for each material would have lots of example problems. Include basic knowledge, up the requirements to an intermediate and significant knowledge level for each material. It was not that way. Nonetheless, it wasn't a total loss because of the general seismic review and the bridge review by Tim Mays. Mr. Mays could have his own instructional course and exceed the other courses, in my opinion.

FWIW, if I didn't go chapter by chapter in the PCA Notes on my own study time in addition to all of the SEAOC Seismic Design Manuals, I would not have passed.

I've been reviewing PCA notes and find them well written. I still have to acquire SEAOC manuals Vol. II & III, probably will get those this week.

 

[ipswitch]

ICC back ordered my SEAOC Vol II & III till beginning of September!

 

[Layman]

ICC back ordered my SEAOC Vol II & III till beginning of September!

Ipswitch, are you referring to 2009 version? To get them early September is a bit late for October exam imho.

 

[ipswitch]

Yes Layman, 2009. I'm only taking the Vertical portion so maybe I can squeeze by without an indepth review.

 

[dakota_79]

ip, I'd say the SEAOC volumes provide zero help for the vertical component, so you should be alright then. The 3 volumes focus 90% on seismic, 10% on wind, neither of which is covered on the vertical component. Still a good set to have around the office, though, and helpful to know for other people looking to order them.

For those people who need them for October, I'd say order the 2006 versions used from elsewhere then. Minor differences between 2006 and 2009, in terms of IBC anyway. 2006 SEAOC volumes worked fine for me this past spring.

 

[Chosen One]

^I also ran into this situation. I ordered the 2009 Volume 1 and it was on backorder for a long time, but I got it in the mail about a month ago. I've already gone through it and it is a very good study tool. Since then I looked into buying 2009 Volumes 2 & 3, but they aren't scheduled to be released until September so I went ahead and purchased the 2006 versions today.